That damn thing happened again. This uncontrollable entertainer slash wannabe author has exploded inside me again the moment I started the life hacking away from the catering, home repairs and yards — odds and ends bullshit — and back toward my old way of being a hardcore nine to fiver giving up every day off I could to squeeze every drop of green out of the whole deal. It’s a problem. In one mindset it is key at this job app’d up point to go do the face-time thing anywhere where it’s not just a “blah, whatever” type resume submission.

But instead I’m in the process of opening a Patreon centered on my writing and just finally bought a web-cam of merit to adhere to the “best practices” guidelines they provide. Probably a new YouTube channel before long too. The thinking here is that, as I have whined about before here into the blogs, there really isn’t any good reason for me to online-publish things like pieces of upcoming fictional works and poetry anthologies. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this style of free-flowing Web content and this style of post would always show up on this blog.

However, when I look over my hard drive there is a lot of pieces on here that are better suited for a Patreon feed than just sheer live blogging potential future IPs so third-parties can just come in and give zero credit to the author while using a level of ads that is obviously excessive. People should get paid for their best work and art is work like any other. If I were to guess the objections some raise about this style of crowd-funding it’s that they don’t see writing, music, and art in general as something valid to pour money into unless it comes pre-packaged by the existing industry involved.

What I think many are unaware of in this matter is that in the “old days” a writer of merit would receive an investment in the form of a large lump sum directly from the publisher then given a deadline to produce. This investment was expressly for living expenses, research materials, leisure time, and anything else that might enhance the final product. No going back from the Digital Era, obviously, so e-publishing is just a beast all serious writers have to tackle to ground or be eaten alive when you try and call yourself that in public. But there are many projects going on here and no time at all to finish all of them unless I do that thing where the heady stuff and the final draft prose is paying for itself.

Enough about that. My neighborhood was popping off a second ago. Live music from up the hill and little kids singing some pop song I don’t recognize from over the fence. Out here in the backyard after running around town a bit. This is Santa Cruz, CA by the way or “Surf City USA” or as I want to be known as the birthplace of NHS and Santa Cruz (Brand) Skateboards & Clothing. No I don’t work for them it’s more that you might have seen those stickers around and those are referring to my little surf / skate town here.

Think I liked San Francisco more but the housing costs are just stupid high so that’s off the table unless I could network that shit. Oh what else? All this poetry explosion going on in my head is probably because I’m in love again, which is nice but complicated when these new feelings are for a long time close friend who is keeping at a distance most days. Always been a fool for love but thanks to serious bumps in the road in my youth I can speak very openly and directly about these topics if people are comfortable enough with me to do so. Often the things left unsaid in romance can be sexier than spilling your guts twenty-four seven but oh doggies do things get complicated sometimes and the need for honest communication shifts into the foreground so strongly that it’s almost slapping you in the face.

Okay, that was a “rant” they call them in this box of digital expression that is linked to other boxes that occasionally do this creating unique ideas stuff. Peace, love and chicken grease.

I end up doing the same thing I do on Twitter where I keep it short & sweet on here because it just gets turned into “More…” anyway which I rarely click, so I assume most other people are the same way about that one. Living without a “Dislike” button may be the new lifestyle trend of this century, but it can be seriously weird considering if I “Like” some horribly tragic yet nonetheless important news link I’m viewing. Lastly all Facebook seems to have become is a online birthday calendar for a lot of people, whereas some of us were digging in the grassroots garden long before all that stuff happened.

Like this:

The Great Internet Marketing Guru takes a few questions and concerns from his clients.

Let’s listen in:

“My internet ad campaign was a total wash. I ended up taking a bath and nobody even visited my site!”

“Did you put boobs all over it like I told you to?”

“No, I thought that was too superficial and sensationalistic.”

“And that would be why you failed. You forgot your audience is nothing but superficial and craves sensationalism.”

“So what do I now?”

“Take a picture of your penis and put it on Craigslist.”

“Okay … but what is that gonna help?”

“Nothing. I just want you to relive the shame of former roommates of mine.”

***

“I saw this ad making a claim I shouldn’t buy a product. Should I believe it?”

“Of course! Ads were created to tell you what not to buy, not what to buy. So when an ad tells you to buy something, you know it’s fake because they are trying to advertise to you. But when an ad tells you not to buy something, you know it’s real because they are not advertising to you.”

“Wait … what?”

***

“So I got all these people reading my blog about tech and travel but I want to use my blog audience to expand my business promotions as well. How can I retool my blog without loosing readers?”

“It’s easy: Dramatically announce you will be leaving the blog, probably the whole Internet, forever. Send that out and then wait a few days, then come back with some false tale of woe and then start selling hub caps and spark plugs off your blog-doohickey.”

“That really works?”

“Oh yeah, totally! People usually use it to switch from catatonic to mildly psychotic instead of non-monetized to monetized, but all blogging is pretty much the same thing.”

***

“I was thinking of opening up a singles dating service online and…”

“Get the hell out of my office.”

***

“I heard that Twitter was the new tool for marketing professionals with the hottest and latest ideas.”

“Who told you that?”

“That guy in the rabbit suit trying to give out fliers.”

***

“Someone told me you could market products on Facebook more effectively than using banner services.”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘market.’ If by that you mean annoy people and be ignored, then yes it is very effective.”

***

“I bought up all my domain names and registered on every social network that exists. Is there anything else I should do before I set out to rule the digital landscape?”

“Yes. Hire a mafia. You are late to the game, the only way you’ll get any traction now is to break kneecaps and go gangsta on Google.”

***

Thus concludes another session of ultimate wisdom from The Great Internet Marketing Guru.